


Petrichor

by rosalynbair



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff, lots of description, this is just cute ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-03 07:16:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14563815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosalynbair/pseuds/rosalynbair
Summary: You lose your wallet on the subway during the worst possible weather. Peter helps you out.





	Petrichor

The rain is coming down in sheets, the water hitting every surface readily available for it. Small clusters of people running out of shops and to their cars or to the buses, trying so desperately to stay dry. For some, those with tired eyes and messy hair, uniforms wrinkled from a night of use, the day was ending. And for others that were milling about under canopies and umbrellas in fresh clothes and hot coffees in their hands, the day was just beginning. 

Your eyes pass over cars that sped by you, the large vehicles all a blur of dull colours in the city, tires hitting the puddles that were forming against the curb of the sidewalk that the storm drains couldn’t keep up with, the water still overflowing the metal bars that led under the pavement in a rush of loud white noise, almost imitating a natural creek. Your legs move slower than your mind can register the sudden wave of pale brown water as another car sped past, barely stopping at the red sign a few meters away. The dirty city water splashing over your already wet canvas sneakers. Your jeans from the hem up to your knees was splattered with water now, the rough fabric clinging to your cold skin. 

A soft but forced sigh was pushed passed your lips, your cold and damp hands coming out of the pocket of your soaked hoodie to adjust the hood that was sliding back off your head. You look down, your nose parallel to the pavement as you walked down the street, droplets running down the bridge of your nose to fall onto your sweater, your mind running through the thoughts of regretting losing your wallet a few days prior. You didn’t care about the twenty-dollar bill or the crumpled-up ones that were in it, or any of your ID, you cared more for your transit pass. It being stuck in the side pocket of your wallet was the only reason you were stuck walking to school on such a horribly wet morning. 

You loved rain, but you loved it when you weren’t in it. You loved it when you were watching the drops hit the surfaces when you were safe and warm inside of a train or a bus. You loved it from inside of your bedroom when the breeze brought in the light mist to swirl around you while you worked on the bullet journal you worked so hard on. Or while you drank a tea and huffed over your dreaded math homework.

You had asked for a ride from your dad, but he was working night shifts and didn’t have the energy to get back into the truck to take you the few blocks to midtown high. The moment he had walked into the door this morning, he had large dark circles under his eyes and walked with an uneasy limp due to standing and working on concrete for almost twelve hours. 

The rain fell harder the longer you walked, any warmth your body held was fading in the late autumn storm. The early morning sky was darker than it had been in a long time, opaque grey clouds hiding any sign of daylight from the New York concrete around you.

You looked up when a yellow bus passes you, watching it turn into the parking lot of the high school. Your peers darting off the vehicle, bags held over some student’s heads as they rushed up the steps of the school. 

You let out another sigh, following them behind. No longer worried about being wet, you were sure you had a change of clothes in your locker anyways. You often kept something in there for when you forgot about the dress code for your chemistry labs.

“Thanks” You mutter quietly to someone who held the door open for you.   
You step into the school, turning right quickly and opening the door to the stairwell. The soles of your sneakers squeak against the stairs as you jog up them, opening another door and walking down the hallway, before making a sharp left, pushing your way between a group of ninth graders. They let out annoyed gasps when they feel your wet hoodie press against them. 

You reach up, twisting the dial on your lock, forward, 19, backwards, 4, one full turn forwards to 21 and – pull. The lock opens with ease, and you open the light grey door, letting it clang against the locker beside yours. 

“Hey y/n!” MJ says, leaning against the locker beside you. “You look like a drowned rat”

“I feel like one” You grumble, your arms crossing in front of your torso, fingers gripping the hem of your maroon hoodie, peeling the soaked article up over your head, grumbling in annoyance as you feel the fabric rub against your face.

“Hey Y\N” comes again, from a slightly deeper male voice this time.

“Hey Ned” You say, your head being covered by your hoodie. Hands grip the hem of your shirt, pulling it down over your exposed stomach. When the hoodie is off of your head, you’re peeling it off your arms. You give MJ a weak smile as she releases your shirt.

“Your bra was showing.” She tells you.

“Good, it was expensive,” You say, giving her a crooked grin. You glance over, seeing a small, curly haired boy shuffling his feet beside Ned. “Hey Peter.”

He looks up to you, his cheeks flushed. “Oh, hey Y/N.”

“Don’t be so surprised to see me, this is my locker.” You tease, shoving your hoodie into the locker, hanging it on the hook while grabbing the thin light grey cardigan from the shelf, pulling out your textbook with it. “Hold this, will ya?”

You hand the book to Ned, who holds it dramatically, vowing to never let anything happen to the book. You roll your eyes, exchanging a look with MJ as you toe off your sneakers, kicking them into the locker before grabbing out the short ankle boots you had stashed in there. 

“Did you have to walk?” Peter asks, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“Yeah. I lost my wallet” You sigh, shoving your foot into the boot. “It had all my transit cards in it.”

“When was the last time you had it?” He asks, looking down at his sneakers to inspect a scuff he had acquired on one of the sides. 

“Maybe in one of the trains?” You say, shrugging “I’ll just get a new one I guess.”

“Doesn’t it cost a lot of money?” Ned asks you “Y’know, to replace all your ID?”

“Yeah,” You sigh, pulling on your other boot “It’s fine though. I can just use some money from my paycheque.”

“But that’s your college fund.” MJ argues, brows furrowing – only MJ knew that you were saving up enough so you wouldn’t have to get student loans. 

“Shit happens.” You tell her with a shrug of your shoulders, a sigh releasing itself from your lips.

The bell rings, signalling you to head to your first class.

“C’mon Peter,” You say, closing your locker “History is calling us.” 

He nods, waving bye to MJ and Ned. “See you guys at lunch!”

He catches up to you quickly, and you smile at him. “How was dinner last night? You were going over to Liz’s house, right?”

Peter flushes “I ended up at Stark Tower. For the internship. I had dinner there.”  
“Was it fun?” You ask, looking over to him. 

“Yeah” He says “It’s a lot of work, working for Tony Stark. But it’s good for college”

You nod, walking into class and taking your usual seat. Peter sits beside you, pulling out his binder from his…new? Bag. 

“Peter, is that another new bag?” You ask, looking at the blue and grey material.  
“Uh, yeah” He says with a boyish grin.

“You’ve had, like, five in the last month.” You tell him, giving him a slightly motherly stern look.

“You sound like May” he says with a chuckle. “did you do the homework?”

“Yeah, of course.” You nod “Did you?”

“I got halfway through it.” He says, giving you a smile you knew all to well. You roll your eyes, reaching down and grabbing your own binder from your black leather bag, pulling out your homework from the night before and sliding it to him, watching him begin to scribble his messy answers onto his work sheet. 

“Don’t make it look like you copied.” You say before he finished the first question he hadn’t done.

“I know.” He smiles, blushing as you watch him copy quickly, trying to finish as much as possible in the ten minutes before the final bell rang to begin your morning class.

“Done!” He whisper-yells, his voice drowned out by the sound of the bell.   
He drops his pen in triumph, grinning at you as he pushes your work back to you. 

“Good job Parker.” You say, returning his eager smile with a small one of your own. 

Peter has been your friend for barely a few weeks. You had gained him and Ned when MJ started hanging around them after you had been away for a week with the flu, and it seems like Peter had been trying to gain your affection ever since. He was odd, but you found comfort in his company. He made you feel warm inside. 

Well, he kind of made you feel like a bunch of flowers were in your stomach, blooming to their full size whenever he smiled at you. You did everything in your power to not seem like a dysfunctional mess in front of him. But you’re sure it didn’t always work, like when you found yourself drifting off in class, your eyes on him the entire time as he worked or tried to pay attention.

Little did you know how often he knew you stared at him, but he’s Peter Parker, he’s sure you were just staring at him because he had something funny in his teeth from lunch.

~

Class ended without any incident, although your teacher declared an extra test for the next day after learning how horrible everyone had done on the one that had just passed. You and Peter were rushing to your lockers to switch out textbooks in the ten minute time slot that was barely enough time to run to the opposite side of the school and all the way back. 

You stood at your locker, nose scrunching as you smelled your wet clothes in the small space. You ignore it though, shoving your history book onto the top shelf, grabbing the novel you were reading for your English class before slamming the door shut, forcing your lock to go back into the almost too-small hole that was welded badly. 

“Do we have English next?” Peter asks, slightly out of breath as he comes to stand beside you. 

“Yeah, did you grab the wrong book?” You ask, moving to walk quickly beside him, worming your way through the crowd of students.

“I forgot what we had next, so I grabbed the book and our Science textbook.” He tells you, holding onto the straps of his bag tightly. 

“We don’t have science on Wednesdays.” You remind him, reaching back and grabbing his hand, tugging him through the crowd of teenagers.

“Right.” He sighs. “It’s Wednesday?”

“The last time I checked.” You tell him, opening the door to the stairwell before releasing his warm hand. “That internship is really wearing on you isn’t it?”

Peter simply gives a small smile along with a shrug. But you could see past the smile, you could see the slight bags under his eyes that had grown from nothing over the few weeks you had known him. 

~

“You can’t pay for all of your replacements out of your college fund y/n.” MJ argues, stabbing the salad that was in front of her. “It would cost literal hundreds.”

“Three hundred.” You sigh, leaning your cheek against the heel of your hand. 

“That’s… A lot.” Peter interjects, staring at you with his mouth full of day old cafeteria pasta.

“It’s not like I have any other choice.” You sigh, lifting your can of pop that MJ had bought with your lunch, sipping away at it. “I already called the lost and found, and the transit workers on the train I was on. They said they’d call if they found it.”

“Can you call again?” Ned asks, looking up from some lego page on his phone.

“There’s no point.” You grumble. “It’s New York. I’ll probably never see it again.”

You set your drink down with a huff, picking away at the French fries MJ had told you that she expected you to eat. 

“Was the wallet expensive?” Peter asks, looking over at you after swallowing his food. 

“Not really, it was just one of those cheap ones from Ardenes. I liked it though, it had cute lotus flowers on it.” You tell him with a shrug. “It’s not available anymore, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s more like, all my ID and transit passes are gone.”

Peter nods, trying to remember what the wallet looked like from the times you had hastily shoved it into your bag or when you all went out for lunch on weekends.

~

Peter Parker would not admit to anyone that he had been actively looking for your wallet while running around New York City in his Spider-Man costume. Even though that is exactly what he was doing. 

It was a slow week anyways. He would tell himself. And you were a member of New York society, so he took it onto himself to help you. 

It was difficult to maneuver the slew of trains that ran the tracks of the New York Subway daily on a usual week. But with the onslaught of hurricane like rains that had been attacking the city, the subway cars were even more crowded than usual. 

The hot presses of the bodies against him made him dizzy as he went from car to car, looking under seats and against walls – occasionally asking people to stand so he could examine the seats for the item he searched for.

It was Thursday when he found it. It stared at him as if it were taunting him what took you so long? It seemed to ask. The white canvas of it was speckled with mud and subway substances. But it was your wallet. He recognized it from the brief memories he was able to bring up with you holding it. 

He unzipped it, pulling out your G1 that rested in one of the card slots. Seeing your smiling face staring back at him, he returns it to the slot and moves to stand by the doors to be let off at the next stop. 

~

You were curled up on your chair in your bedroom. Mechanical pencil dangling from your fingers as you stare at your English homework. And Then There Were None was open to the tenth chapter, the highlighter tabs you had stuck beside phrases and paragraphs glaring at you from beside your worksheet that held the questions you needed to answer on a weekly basis to prepare for the essay you needed to write at the end of the book. 

Rain pattered roughly against your open window, mist from the rain blowing in swirls into your room. The smell calmed you from your anxiety of doing homework. The sound of the rain mixed calmly with your gentle Nahko Bear vinyl that played from the speakers of your record player. 

Another tap against your window makes you look up. Your brows furrow as you see Peter Parker leaning into your bedroom. 

“Hey, it’s wet out.” He tells you with a smile. “Can I come in?”

You nod, setting your pencil down onto the desk. “Yeah, why are you over on this side of town?”

“I was in the neighbourhood.” He tells you with flushed cheeks, easily kicking off his shoes so he didn’t track dirty footprints through your room.

“Sounds like BS.” You tell him, using your toes to spin your chair to face him. “How’d you even know where I live?”

“I uh-“ Peter gives you a small smile. “I well. Y’know. Found your wallet?”

It took a few moments for the words to register to you. “Wait. What?”

Peter was already digging into his -now green- backpack. You took in his soaked appearance, a blue hoodie and the hints of a red spandex shirt under it. The jeans he wore were wet on the front, showing that he had been walking against the rain. 

You recognized the wallet immediately, the blue and pink Hawaiian and Lotus flowers standing out despite the layer of dirt that covered it. You dart up from your seat, stumbling towards Peter as you grab the wallet from your hands. 

“I already checked, all your stuff is in there.” Peter says sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck with his cold fingers.

You double check anyways, giving him a grin when you see all your green transit cards and the faded blues of your ID’s. 

It's barely a moment that passes before your arms are tightly wrapped around Peter Parker’s neck, holding him tightly. “Thank you.” You tell him eagerly, using your grip around him to pull him closer to your height. 

Your lips are on his cheek, placing a gentle but firm kiss onto the damp skin. “Thank you.” You repeat, looking at him with a heartbreaking smile.

“’was nothin’” he tells you, his lean arms wrapped around your body. 

“Maybe to you.” You say, looking him in the eye. “This means a lot to me Peter.”

There’s a distinct blush over his face now, no longer from the cold from outside – but rather from the heat of your compliment and validation. 

“C’mon.” You say with a smile, pulling away and grabbing his hand. “Have dinner with us.”


End file.
